A Depressing Yesterday

Yesterday I was under a black cloud for most of the day. I had a stomach bug after eating lunch and spent the better half of an hour white, pale-faced, sweaty in the bathroom after. Details are better off not discussed but suffice to say, I recovered to do battle yet another day.

Then I dragged my weak dehydrated self to the bed and dozed for an hour, with the intention of getting my strength back. I woke up somewhat later than anticipated and ended up going to the Chinatown Clinic later than anticipated as well. We were supposed to meet about 1/2 hour before clinic started. All along the way, I braced myself for being reamed by the attending physician. To my pleasant surprise, when I burst into the clinic and apologized profusely for being late, the doctor, normally with a reputation for being somewhat of a groucho marx, looked at me with a rather benevolent smile and just blew it off, saying, "That's okay."

I was working as a translator - well, thats mostly all I do there, translate for patients who walk in the door. I met yet another depressing case. This woman comes in. Her husband has stomach cancer and has been home for the past 2-3 years. She quit her job last October to take care of him. Their medical bills for chemotherapy and odds and ends were in the thousands. I had a feeling, before this is over, it would go into the tens of thousands. Both are not insured, and both were clearly not well off. I asked how they were getting by. The woman said her child, now 22, was working to support them. She became a bit teary eyed at that, thinking of how her child couldn't go to school because of the situation. I felt both terrible for her and ashamed of myself. I have had it so easy and I still go around feeling sorry for myself all the time. Sometimes I can truly see how tough life is and all things considering, life has been good to me, no, really really good to me...

Still, this realization didn't uplift me per se. It brought my mood down another notch. I also felt paradoxically that life is so meaningless too. They say that suffering means something, but for these wretched poorest of the poors, what added existential meaning does suffering bring to them? What lessons, or spiritual insights can they gain from this? They worry incessantly, I'm sure, about how to get by, how to not be sick, how to make ends meet, how to find their next meal, or ensure they have a roof over their heads. With all their energy tied up into worrying about such basic necessities, what spiritual value can their suffering have? I don't know the answer, but I do wonder.